Clean water in Sierra Leone!

Hi friends,
Check out this article on our site.  A new well has just been built, and the people of Ngolala village now have clean water for the first time.  Praise God for this blessing!

Clean water at Ngolala Junction

Hospitality Video!

Cheez has graciously helped me create a video to explain the COTN Hospitality program and my role on staff.  The purpose is to show the ministry, what it is doing to serve children, and help me raise funds.  I am sure by now almost all of you know I am trying to gain more monthly partners in order to be fully funded.  I am currently listening to Chris Clark (COTN founder) share stories of how COTN is affecting lives, and he is recalling stories of his late father.  I am thinking to myself, how proud would his dad be to know he founded an organization that is serving, feeding, and educating thousands of children in countries all over the world!  I am thrilled to be part of this ministry that is so clearly transforming lives.

Please take a moment to watch this video and consider being a part of this!  It is about 4.5 minutes long.  Also feel free to pass this on to everyone you know, post to facebook, whatever :)  I am here if you have questions.  Thank you!  Paste this link if it doesn't work-  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xrZvLiRps&feature=youtu.be

Hear from a team member

Heather was one of my fellow team members this summer on the trip to Sierra Leone.  She has willingly shared about her experience and the impact it had on her.  If you are interested in going on a Venture trip, click here!


My visit to Sierra Leone has been my greatest gift and achievement. The gift of "self" that the kids have given to me and I to them is incomparable to anything that could be aquired. During this venture, I was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit at the hands of these children and with nothing to offer they have demonstrated to us Faith, Hope and Love, which are everything meaningful in this life! I treasure the days I spent at the COTN compound and am ever grateful for the opportunity to have served on this mission with COTN.

A little thing can save a lot of lives

Hi friends,
Check out this article and video about the generous donation of mosquito nets recently received.  You can read stories of how a child's life has been changed by something as simple as a mosquito net, as well as see our children's appreciation for the gift.

http://www.cotni.org/news/small-nets-make-big-differences

Isaac says he used to get malaria so often that he was afraid he'd have to repeat a year of school. Now that he has a net, he is much more likely to be in school and not miss anything.

COTN in the news

Hello all!  Check out this article about COTN's presence in Haiti :)

Silverdale nonprofit establishes presence in Haiti

Tracking system - CHECK!

I am pleased to announce that the hospitality tracking system has been completed.  If you recall my recent post about the work front, I listed off some items that were weighing heavy on my to-do list.  Well, I have finished the template for tracking needed and shipped hospitality resources as well as training sessions.  This will help us ensure our mission houses in each country have all they need to care for team members serving the children.  We strive to make sure the accomodations are comfortable and safe for team members, provide nutritious food, and give them a place to rest and fill their energy tank for the next day of service.

You will also notice the thermometer on the left shows an increase in my monthly goal!  I now have $1,045 per month being given.  There is still $445 per month to go, so please, if you are considering given, do so!  If you are still deciding and have questions you can email me at jennadenard@cotni.org or call me.

Have a great day!

Keep the Dream Alive - FACEBOOK PAGE

Check it out!  Like it!  Friend it! Post to it!  Whatever people are supposed to do on Facebook... There is a page called Keep the Dream Alive on Facebook where I am trying to gain interest for the Hospitality Program.  As you  know by now, I am not raising my full monthly support amount.  I am at $1,020 out of $1,490 PER MONTH that I need to raise :/  It's ok though!  I have faith.  Please visit the facebook page Keep the Dream Alive and consider becoming one of my monthly parters!!  Or consider increasing your monthly contribution if you are one already :)  Please keep praying for funds to come in. Thank you to everyone for being a part of this with me! 

Dominican Republic expansion project

Hey everyone! Check out architect Justin Towart's site - Justin and Jonathan Aprati are the architects that donated their time to create wonderful floor plans for the new housing at Casa Bethesda. The images on here are what the house is projected to look like.

Justin's site: http://www.justintowart.com/dominican-republic-housing/

To read more about the Casa Expansion at COTN's ministry site in the Dominican: http://www.cotni.org/opportunities/191

N'gardy Bangali - a child we met in Sierra Leone

Here is a "child's story" from the COTN website about N'gardy, a young lady we met while in Sierra Leone.  The camp she speaks about in the story is the camp we continued this year.  N'gardy has been attending camp since it started in 2004.   Enjoy!

The work front

Have you ever had a time in your job when you had so many big items on your task list, and they involved lots of thought and creativity, that you just can't get started?  It's so easy for me to knock items off a task list that have very specific instructions.  I can do them quickly and well.  Right now I am in that other place.  I just can't get started on my list because I can't figure out which item takes top priority.  So instead of just starting, I stress about making sure I do things in the right order - then nothing gets done!  Ridiculous, I know.

The big players in this scenario are 1) Creating a Hospitality manual to be used by the staff in our countries as they host teams. (An entire manual!  I know, right?)  2) Developing an efficient system to track needed hospitality items in each country that can work smoothly in conjunction with our master resources list.  3) Create more fundraising tools to gain the additional $470 per month that I need.   :/  That is just the beginning.

I am hopeful that I can write another post soon that tells you I have finished one of these things!  I want to write more now so I can have an excuse not to get started, but that's not helping anything.

More later...

motivation :)

Hospitality Training

What Venture trip would be complete without some good ole' southern hospitality.  Our last day there I held a Hospitality training session for the teens who work at our Guest house.  The neat thing about the ministry in Sierra Leone is that so many of the children live on property in our children's homes.  It is a bitter-sweet thing.  Their stories are sad, because if they live in full time care it means they lost their families; many due to the war.  The redemption is that God has placed them into these loving homes where they have new families and a place to belong.  They are growing up happy and healthy.  About ten or so of the teens from these homes work in our guest house in Hospitality roles.  They cook, clean and serve the teams.  They are doing a fantastic job!  Our training sessions consisted of Food Safety and Sanitation, Food Prep and Etiquette, and Housekeeping.  I was a bit anxious leading up to the training, because how interested can teenagers really be in this type of thing?  It was great though!  They all paid close attention, answered the follow up questions correctly, and asked questions of their own.  I only wish I could have done the training earlier in the week to see how they did with all the new information.




Teens working around the guest house





Around the guest house



 

The wonderful people who supported this trip made it possible.  You loved children, taught them arts and crafts, gave them fun and games, shared stories of the love of God, taught them valuable life skills.  Venture teams cannot exist without the generous people who give of themselves through finances, prayer, and anything else to make it happen.  Look what you did!  So many lives have been affected.  Thank you.  I hope you enjoyed hearing about our time in the Dominican and Sierra Leone.  We enjoyed being there.  :)

Waynes World 2 meets Sierra Leone

My favorite movie is Waynes World 2.  The first one is good, don't get me wrong.  The second one is just so funny, though.  One of my favorite lines is when Wayne is explaining his idea for Waynestock, a music festival.  He is asked "Who's going to be there?" So Wayne and Garth, scrambling to make up an answer, look around the room at band posters and use their names.

"Aerosmith and Pearl Jam"
"Who else"
"Me and Wayne"
"and?"
"and... Van Halen"
"Yeah, who else?"
".. and old man fashioning a kayak out of a log..?  no! no! I mean Rip Taylor!"

If you've seen it, you are laughing right now.  One of our last days in Sierra Leone we were taken to a village called Mokpangumba, and there is when we saw an old man, actually fashioning a kayak out of a log.  I made the joke, but I don't think anyone there got it.  So now I am sharing with you.

Wayne's World

Sierra Leone

To get to Mokpangumba we had to walk about an hour and a half through the jungle.  Single file, we followed a skinny path through streams, lines of army ants, and bush.  After the walk, we had to take a canoe ride across a river to finally reach our destination.  Alternative name for our destination?  The best behavied COTN children I have ever seen!  The children in our program are all pretty well behavied.  We have great teachers and principals instilling the right values in them - but wow!  These kids are fantastic.  We were there in the summer, so they all walked into school in their cute school uniforms to put on this sweet welcome presentation for us.  They introduced themselves, quoted bible verses, nursery rhymes, showed us how they can do the Engligh alphabet forward and backward.  It was so incredibly nice, and all of this was just to spend an hour of time with us.  Due to how far away the village was, we only had about an hour to spend with them and they made it such a huge priority.  Another awesome thing was that one of our team members got to meet his sponsor child for the first time.  I love when that happens.  I have put pictures from our Makpangumba experience below.

A special thanks to Ethan Kalebaugh for sharing the majority of these Sierra Leone photos.  All of the ones that look professional and awesome are Ethan's work.

Youth camp in Sierra Leone is apparently like Harry Potter

Everyone is divided into Houses, and you do days of competition to see which house will win it all.  This youth camp consistested of four house:  The Green House, The Blue house, the Yellow House and the Red House.  Spoiler alert:  I was in the Red House and we came in dead last.  The events are organized by someone they call the Eegway.  An Eegway is a cross between an M.C. and a god.  Weird, right?  So the Eegway runs the whole camp, and awards points to teams for the competitions and just for whatever they feel like.  On top of that, in an attempt to get extra points, the teams will continually run up to the Eegway and bow down chanting "Eegway, Eegway" as they praise them.  Well, guess who got to be the Eegway.  I'll give you a clue - they called him "Cheezgway." 

Cheezgway was accompanied by seasoned Sierra Leone Venture participant Tim Dikun, our second Eegway.  Cheez has since told a number of people that this was his favorite project he's done on a Venture trip.  He claims it is because he loves youth camps.  I think its because he loved hundreds of people bowing down to him.

The purpose of camp was to share the love and teachings of Jesus Christ with the teenagers.  Many of them live in the children's homes on property.  Others walked for miles from other villages to join.  We heard sermons from Uncle Mark Drennan each morning, and from our very own team members in the afternoon.  There were skits to act out the bible verses, and as mentioned before - lots of competitions.  Don't worry, we have video coming of all this stuff.

Now enjoy the pictures from youth camp.

Meet the team

Allow me to introduce you to our wonderful team.



Dan



Daisy



Carrie



Cheez

 

Jeanette



Jenna



Jessy

 

Krystal



Lindsay

  

Lindsey

  

Luis

  

Noah

   

Scott

  

Shelley

 

Tony

   



Someone on our team liked to take sleeping pictures.  I won't mention names (Ethan)